


You Kissed Alex?

by libellules



Series: You Kissed Alex? -Verse [1]
Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Alex only has one line, Justin always cries in my fics, M/M, clay is clumsy but he loves his brother, coming out but not coming out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 13:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16599218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/libellules/pseuds/libellules
Summary: The one where Clay witnesses a private moment between Justin and Alex, Justin thinks Clay saw more than he did, and a little misunderstanding follows.





	You Kissed Alex?

Clay was usually a pretty deep sleeper, unaffected by pattering of footsteps down to the kitchen for a snack at midnight or the quiet slamming of the bathroom door at two and at four am. Most every night Clay slept peacefully through the night until the sun broke through his blinds forcing himself out of his bliss and up searching for the nearest pot of coffee. 

That was until Justin Foley moved in. Out of all of the surprising things Clay was learning about his new brother, one of the biggest was that he had very frequent night terrors. The first time Clay heard him screaming he bolted out of bed and grabbed the baseball bat he kept tucked behind his door and suddenly matched his father in the hallway carrying his own bat. The next time it happened Clay just felt sick; Justin was struggling and there was nothing Clay could do. The terrors were becoming less frequent over time, but they still happened often enough that Clay found his eyes shutting as he leaned against the Crestmont counter only two hours into a shift. 

One Saturday evening, after a particularly long Crestmont shift, Clay found himself curled up in bed with his vest still on, eyes drooping quickly. And as soon as the magic of sleep overwhelmed him, he was awake again. It wasn’t night terrors, he knew the sounds of the murderous screams too well to confuse them with anything else. But it was definitely crying. He looked at the time on his phone and saw that he had been asleep for about an hour, his parents weren’t going to be home for another forty-five minutes from their couples’ date night with Lainie’s friend from work, and Justin was supposed to be at the gym with Zach. Clay momentarily considered grabbing the bat, but decided to go in head first. 

Just as he suspected, the crying was coming from down the hall behind Justin’s door. Light poured from the ajar door into the dark hallway and Clay would almost make out a second person, but it looked like they were somehow morphed together. Clay crept closer, a feeling in his gut warning him not to intrude on a private moment. But Clay was too curious for his own good so he crept close enough that he could see what was going on. 

It was Alex Standall with Justin wrapped up in his arms. Justin was sobbing, clutching onto Alex’s arms like his life depended on it. They were on the edge of Justin’s bed, Alex’s chin resting on the top of Justin’s head, bouncing gently as the sobs wracked through Justin’s body. It was so intimate and Clay felt like he might be violating it just by being there. He turned to go, a little too quickly and clumsily, banging against the shelf in the hall and causing a loud thud as two picture frames fell over. 

“Shit.” 

The light flooded into the hallway and Clay turned back around to see Alex in the doorway and Justin standing behind him, back facing Clay as he furiously wiped at his eyes. 

“Hey.” _Hey? Was that really all he could think of to say right now?_

“Clay, I think it would be best if-,”

“Say no more. I’m gone,” he interrupted, backing up trying to regain his sense of balance. 

“No, it’s okay. It’s-,”

“Justin, it’s alright. I can go,” Clay sighed, feeling guiltier than he already had when he heard the trembling of Justin’s voice. 

The Justin before him was still so knew to Clay, too foreign for Clay to ever understand. He was realizing more each day just how drastically different their childhoods had been: Clay with loving parents and Christmas trees and Justin with loneliness, confusion, and Bryce Walker. After a long talk with his dad on the car ride home from picking up a pizza one night he had explained how Justin, like many children who were abused at a young age, had a hard time being vulnerable, trusting, and often put on a mask of confidence and strength when he was hurting. The Justin Foley he had known his whole life was this happy, carefree, goofball, fuckboy whose smile hurt his best friend and who would never be curled up on a bed with Alex Standall sobbing on a Saturday night, he would probably be at a keg party. 

But this Justin was the real one. This Justin was the one that was addicted to Cool Ranch Doritos, could never manage to actually tie a proper knot on his ties, hated ice cream with marshmallows in it, and cried himself to sleep most nights. This was his newly younger brother who was finally comfortable to be vulnerable and Clay wanted, _god he wanted_ , to be there for him but he just had no idea how. Maybe Alex did. 

“It’s okay, I didn’t see anything. I just woke up, I probably won’t even remember any of this. I’m... I’m just gonna go get something to eat. Just…” 

“Yeah, okay.” Alex nodded at him with a soft but weirdly protective expression, he was holding all the confidence Justin normally possessed. He closed the door. 

Clay gave himself a few seconds to catch his breath and figure out what just happened before turning on the hall light and heading downstairs to scour the fridge. As he searched around for a post note with his name on it covering a Tupperware lid, he thought about Justin and Alex. They had been casual friends back when the tapes had been released but Clay never thought of them as really close friends. Justin spent a lot of time at the library getting tutored by Alex and they were often found with Zach and sometimes Scott too. Sometimes Clay would get home to find all four of them in the living room with half chugged sodas and Xbox controllers in their hands. But he never thought he would see Alex and Justin like that. 

He found a Tupperware with leftover fettucine alfredo with his name on it and set it on a plate to put in the microwave. After filling up a glass of water and fishing utensils out of a drawer, Clay took a seat at the table to further overanalyze the scene upstairs. Two bites in, Justin was standing in the doorway fidgeting his hands and letting his eyes meet anything but Clay’s. 

“So, uh…”

“Justin, look, whatever I just saw… it’s whatever. It’s none of my business, I should have knocked.” Justin looked up at him with big eyes looking so scared and Clay’s stomach churned, less hungry. 

“I was going to tell you, I just didn’t know what to say. I don’t even know what I am or what we are or…” Justin trailed off again, fingers pulling on the sleeves of his shirt. 

“You don’t have to explain anything, I get it.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s nothing that I haven’t done. I mean you would know, you where there.” Justin suddenly looked extremely confused as if calculus equations were scrolling through his mind. 

“Wait, what?” 

“What?”

“You kissed Alex?” Clay actually physically spit out the water he had just taken a sip of. It wasn’t eloquent and symmetrical like it was in the movies, it went partially into his cup and the rest flooded his pasta, a trail of spit sticking to his chin. 

“What are you talking about?!” 

“What are _you_ talking about?” 

“Justin, I have no idea what’s going on. I just saw you were upset and that’s all. Wait, did you guys-,”

“Yes, okay, shut up.” Justin had the literal sweetest blush Clay had never seen, he was totally going to tease him about that later but this was not the time. 

“Didn’t say anything.” 

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Oh sure, that’s why you came down here to talk to me.” Okay, maybe he would tease him a little. They were brothers. 

“Whatever, Clay.” But when Justin suddenly turned with a pout, looking to be headed back upstairs, Clay stood up. 

“Justin, wait.” 

“What?” 

“I’m sorry, Justin. I don’t care who you’re kissing, okay? I was just worried that you were upset. I didn’t mean to intrude and you don’t owe me any kind of explanation.” Justin was quiet, thinking as he looked over Clay. Finally, after somewhat of a deep contemplation, he nodded. 

“Thanks, Clay.”

**Author's Note:**

> So instead of contributing to my chapter-fic I am here with yet another one-shot because gosh darn it they are just so much easier to inspire myself to write. This is shot and kinda shit but I think it's a little charming so I'm uploading it anyway. That, and the Justlex tag isn't as popping lately and I wanna change that. 
> 
> Also, if I did a series with new Justlex drabbles/one-shots/etc would you guys be interested because I have a lot of short ideas but I don't really know where I could take a chapter-fic with them right now. Maybe season 3 will inspire some new ideas for me.


End file.
